A

GCSE
ENGLISH LITERATURE
Paper 1 Shakespeare and the 19th-century novel

8702/1
Wednesday 13 May 2020 Morning

Time allowed: 1 hour 45 minutes

For this paper you must have:

• an AQA 16-page Answer Book.

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INSTRUCTIONS

• Use black ink or black ball-point pen. Do NOT use

pencil.
• Write the information required on the front of your
answer book. The PAPER REFERENCE is 8702/1.
• Answer ONE question from SECTION A and ONE
question from SECTION B.
• You must NOT use a dictionary.

INFORMATION

• The marks for questions are shown in brackets.

• The maximum mark for this paper is 64.
• AO4 will be assessed in SECTION A. There are
4 marks available for AO4 in SECTION A in addition
to 30 marks for answering the question. AO4
assesses the following skills: use a range of
vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity,
purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and
punctuation.
• There are 30 marks for SECTION B.

DO NOT TURN OVER UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO

SECTION A

Shakespeare Question Page

‘Macbeth’ 1 6–9

‘Romeo and Juliet’ 2 10–11

‘The Tempest’ 3 12–15

4

‘The Merchant of Venice’ 4 16–17

‘Much Ado About Nothing’ 5 18–19

‘Julius Caesar’ 6 20–21

SECTION B

The 19th-century novel Question Page

Robert Louis Stevenson ‘The Strange Case of 7 22–24

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’

Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ 8 26–29

Charles Dickens ‘Great Expectations’ 9 30–33

5

Charlotte Brontë ‘Jane Eyre’ 10 34–36

Mary Shelley ‘Frankenstein’ 11 38–41

Jane Austen ‘Pride and Prejudice’ 12 42–44

Arthur Conan Doyle ‘The Sign of Four’ 13 46–47

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SECTION A: Shakespeare

Answer ONE question from this section on your chosen

text.

EITHER

0 1 ‘Macbeth’

Read the following extract from Act 5 Scene 1 of

‘Macbeth’ and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the play, the Doctor and the Gentlewoman

watch Lady Macbeth sleepwalking.

LADY MACBETH Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One,

two. Why
then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord,
fie, a soldier,
and afeard? What need we fear who knows it,
when none can
call our power to account? Yet who would have
thought the old
5 man to have had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH The Thane of Fife had a wife.
Where is she
now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No
more o’that,
my Lord, no more o’that. You mar all with this
starting.
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10 DOCTOR Go to, go to; you have known what you

should not.
GENTLEWOMAN She has spoke what she should
not, I am sure of
that. Heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH Here’s the smell of the blood still;
all the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O.
15 DOCTOR What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely
charged.
GENTLEWOMAN I would not have such a heart in my
bosom for
the dignity of the whole body.
DOCTOR Well, well, well –
GENTLEWOMAN Pray God it be, sir.
20 DOCTOR This disease is beyond my practice; yet I
have known
those which have walked in their sleep who have
died holily in
their beds.
LADY MACBETH Wash your hands, put on your
night-gown, look
not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried;
he cannot
25 come out on’s grave.
DOCTOR Even so?
LADY MACBETH To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at
the gate.
Come, come, come, come, give me your hand;
what’s done
cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.

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0 1 ‘Lady Macbeth is a female character who changes

during the play.’

Starting with this moment in the play, explore how

far you agree with this view.

Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this
extract
• how far Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as
a female character who changes in the play as a
whole.
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]

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OR
0 2 ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 1 of

‘Romeo and Juliet’ and then answer the question that
follows.

At this point in the play, the Prince has arrived to stop

the fight that has broken out in the centre of Verona.

PRINCE Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,

Profaners of this neighbour-stainèd steel –
Will they not hear? – What ho, you men,
you beasts!
That quench the fire of your pernicious
rage
5 With purple fountains issuing from your
veins:
On pain of torture, from those bloody
hands
Throw your mistempered weapons to the
ground,
And hear the sentence of your movèd
prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
10 By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our
streets,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
15 Cankered with peace, to part your cankered
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hate;
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me,
20 And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our farther pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common
judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men
depart.

0 2 Starting with this speech, explore how

Shakespeare presents the effects of the conflict
between the Capulet and Montague families.

Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents the effects of the
conflict in this extract
• how Shakespeare presents the effects of the
conflict between the Capulet and Montague
families in the play as a whole.
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]

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OR

0 3 ‘The Tempest’

Read the following extract from Act 5 Scene 1 of ‘The

Tempest’ and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the play, Prospero is preparing to leave

the island and return to Milan.

PROSPERO Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing

lakes, and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless
foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly
him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets,
that
5 By moon-shine do the green sour ringlets
make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you,
whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that
rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid –
Weak masters though ye be – I have
bedimmed
10 The noontide sun, called forth the
mutinous winds,
And ’twixt the green sea and the azured
vault
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Set roaring war. To the dread rattling

thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout
oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based
promontory
15 Have I made shake, and by the spurs
plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves at my
command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and
let ’em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure. And when I have required
20 Some heavenly music – which even now I
do –
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
25 I’ll drown my book.

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0 3 Starting with this speech, explore how

Shakespeare presents ideas about power and
control.

Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents ideas about power
and control in this speech
• how Shakespeare presents ideas about power
and control in the play as a whole.
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]

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OR

0 4 ‘The Merchant of Venice’

Read the following extract from Act 4 Scene 1 of

‘The Merchant of Venice’ and then answer the question
that follows.

At this point in the play, Portia, disguised as Balthasar,

a Doctor of Laws, is explaining to Shylock why he
should show mercy to Antonio.

PORTIA The quality of mercy is not strained,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that
takes.
5 ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his
crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal
power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of
kings;
10 But mercy is above this sceptred sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself,
And earthly power doth then show likest
God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore,
Jew,
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15 Though justice be thy plea, consider this:

That in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for
mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to
render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus
much
20 To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which if thou follow, this strict court of
Venice
Must needs give sentence ’gainst the
merchant there.

0 4 Starting with this speech, explore how

Shakespeare presents attitudes to mercy in
‘The Merchant of Venice’.

Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents Portia’s attitude to
mercy in this extract
• how Shakespeare presents attitudes to mercy
in the play as a whole.
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]

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OR
0 5 ‘Much Ado About Nothing’

Read the following extract from Act 4 Scene 1 of ‘Much

Ado About Nothing’ and then answer the question that
follows.

At this point in the play, the wedding party has

assembled and Hero is being questioned.

CLAUDIO What man was he, talked with you

yesternight,
Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?
Now if you are a maid, answer to this.
HERO I talked with no man at that hour, my lord.
5 DON PEDRO Why, then are you no maiden.
Leonato,
I am sorry you must hear: upon mine honour,
Myself, my brother, and this grievèd count
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window,
10 Who hath indeed most like a liberal villain,
Confessed the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.
DON JOHN Fie, fie, they are
Not to be named my lord, not to be spoke of,
15 There is not chastity enough in language,
Without offence to utter them: thus, pretty lady,
I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.
CLAUDIO Oh Hero! What a hero hadst thou been,
If half thy outward graces had been placed
20 About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart?
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But fare thee well, most foul, most fair, farewell

Thou pure impiety, and impious purity,
For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
25 To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.
LEONATO Hath no man’s dagger here a point for
me?
[Hero faints]

0 5 Starting with this moment in the play, explore how

Shakespeare presents the attitudes of male
characters towards women in ‘Much Ado About
Nothing’.

Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents the attitudes of male
characters towards women in this extract
• how Shakespeare presents the attitudes of male
characters towards women in the play as a
whole.
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]

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OR

0 6 ‘Julius Caesar’

Read the following extract from Act 3 Scene 1 of

‘Julius Caesar’ and then answer the question that
follows.

At this point in the play, Caesar is assassinated.

They stab Caesar

CAESAR Et tu, Brute? – Then fall, Caesar!
Dies
CINNA Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
5 CASSIUS Some to the common pulpits, and cry out,
‘Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!’
BRUTUS People and senators, be not affrighted,
Fly not, stand still! Ambition’s debt is paid.
CASCA Go to the pulpit, Brutus.
10 DECIUS And Cassius too.
BRUTUS Where’s Publius?
CINNA Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.
METELLUS Stand fast together lest some friend of
Caesar’s
Should chance –
15 BRUTUS Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer,
There is no harm intended to your person,
Nor to no Roman else. So tell them, Publius.
CASSIUS And leave us, Publius, lest that the
people,
Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief.
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20 BRUTUS Do so, and let no man abide this deed

But we the doers.

0 6 Starting with this moment in the play, explore how

Shakespeare presents the ways Rome and its
people are affected by conflict.

Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents the ways Rome and
its people are affected by conflict in this extract
• how Shakespeare presents the ways Rome and
its people are affected by conflict in the play as a
whole.
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]

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SECTION B: The 19th-century novel

Answer ONE question from this section on your chosen

text.

EITHER

0 7 Robert Louis Stevenson:

‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’

Read the following extract from Chapter 10 (Henry

Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case) of ‘The Strange Case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ and then answer the question
that follows.

In this extract, Jekyll describes his experience of taking

the potion for the first time.
I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to
be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave
to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment,
braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out
5 my hands, exulting in the freshness of these
sensations; and in the act I was suddenly aware that
I had lost in stature.
There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that
which stands beside me as I write was brought there
10 later on, and for the very purpose of these
transformations. The night, however, was far gone
into the morning – the morning, black as it was, was
nearly ripe for the conception of the day – the
inmates of my house were locked in the most
15 rigorous hours of slumber; and I determined,
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flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture

in my new shape as far as to my bedroom. I
crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked
down upon me, I could have thought, with wonder,
20 the first creature of that sort that their unsleeping
vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through
the corridors, a stranger in my own house; and,
coming to my room, I saw for the first time the
appearance of Edward Hyde.
25 I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that
which I know, but that which I suppose to be most
probable. The evil side of my nature, to which I had
now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less
robust and less developed than the good which I
30 had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life,
which had been, after all, nine-tenths a life of effort,
virtue, and control, it had been much less exercised
and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it
came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller,
35 slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as
good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil
was written broadly and plainly on the face of the
other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be
the lethal side of man) had left on that body an
40 imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I
looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was
conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of
welcome. This too, was myself. It seemed natural
and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of
45 the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than
the imperfect and divided countenance I had been

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hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so far I

was doubtless right. I have observed that when I
bore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could
50 come near to me at first without a visible
misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was
because all human beings, as we meet them, are
commingled out of good and evil: and Edward
Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.

0 7 Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson

presents ideas about good and evil in ‘The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’.

Write about:
• how Stevenson presents ideas about good and
evil in this extract
• how Stevenson presents ideas about good and
evil in the novel as a whole.
[30 marks]
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OR

0 8 Charles Dickens: ‘A Christmas Carol’

Read the following extract from Chapter 3 of

‘A Christmas Carol’ and then answer the question that
follows.

In this extract, the Ghost of Christmas Present is about

to leave Scrooge.

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past

eleven at that moment.
“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I
5 see something strange, and not belonging to
yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or
a claw?”
“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,”
was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”
10 From the foldings of its robe, it brought two
children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous,
miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung
upon the outside of its garment.
“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!”
15 exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged,
scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their
humility. Where graceful youth should have filled
their features out, and touched them with its
20 freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that
of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled
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them into shreds. Where angels might have sat

enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing.
No change, no degradation, no perversion of
25 humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries
of wonderful creation, has monsters half so
horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them
shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were
30 fine children, but the words choked themselves,
rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous
magnitude.
“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no
more.
35 “They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down
upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from
their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is
Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree,
but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I
40 see that written which is Doom, unless the writing
be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell
it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and
make it worse. And bide the end!”
45 “Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.
“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on
him for the last time with his own words. “Are
there no workhouses?”
The bell struck twelve.

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0 8 Starting with this extract, explore how Dickens

presents the suffering of the poor in ‘A Christmas
Carol’.

Write about:
• how Dickens presents the suffering of the poor
in this extract
• how Dickens presents the suffering of the poor
in the novel as a whole.
[30 marks]

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OR

0 9 Charles Dickens: ‘Great Expectations’

Read the following extract from Chapter 3 of ‘Great

Expectations’ and then answer the question that follows.

In this extract, Pip sets out across the marshes to look

for Magwitch.

It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen

the damp lying on the outside of my little window,
as if some goblin had been crying there all night,
and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.
5 Now I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and
spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders’ webs;
hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade.
On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the
marsh-mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on
10 the post directing people to our village—a direction
which they never accepted, for they never came
there—was invisible to me until I was quite close
under it. Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped,
it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a
15 phantom devoting me to the Hulks.
The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the
marshes, so that instead of my running at
everything, everything seemed to run at me. This
was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates
20 and dykes and banks came bursting at me through
the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, ‘A
boy with Somebody-else’s pork pie! Stop him!’
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The cattle came upon me with like suddenness,

staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their
25 nostrils, ‘Halloa, young thief!’ One black ox, with a
white cravat on—who even had to my awakened
conscience something of a clerical air—fixed me so
obstinately with his eyes, and moved his blunt
head round in such an accusatory manner as I
30 moved round, that I blubbered out to him, ‘I
couldn’t help it, sir! It wasn’t for myself I took it!’
Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of
smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up
of his hindlegs, and a flourish of his tail.
35 All this time I was getting on towards the river;
but however fast I went, I couldn’t warm my feet, to
which the damp cold seemed riveted, as the iron
was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to
meet. I knew my way to the Battery, pretty straight,
40 for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe,
and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that
when I was ‘prentice to him, regularly bound, we
would have such Larks there! However, in the
confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far
45 to the right, and consequently had to try back along
the river-side, on the bank of loose stones above
the mud and the stakes that staked the tide out.
Making my way along here with all despatch, I had
just crossed a ditch which I knew to be very near
50 the Battery, and had just scrambled up the mound
beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before
me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms
folded, and was nodding forward, heavy with sleep.

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0 9 Starting with this extract, explore how Dickens

uses settings to create an atmosphere of tension.

Write about:
• how Dickens uses the setting in this extract
• how Dickens uses settings to create an
atmosphere of tension in the novel as a whole.
[30 marks]

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OR

1 0 Charlotte Brontë: ‘Jane Eyre’

Read the following extract from Chapter 27 of

‘Jane Eyre’ and then answer the question that follows.

In this extract, Jane rejects Rochester’s marriage

proposal after discovering he is already married to
Bertha Mason.

Still indomitable was the reply – ‘I care for

myself. The more solitary, the more friendless,
the more unsustained I am, the more I will
respect myself. I will keep the law given by God;
5 sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles
received by me when I was sane, and not mad –
as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the
times when there is no temptation: they are for
such moments as this, when body and soul rise
10 in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they;
inviolate they shall be. If at my individual
convenience I might break them, what would be
their worth? They have a worth – so I have
always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it
15 is because I am insane – quite insane: with my
veins running fire, and my heart beating faster
than I can count its throbs. Preconceived
opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have
at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.’
20 I did. Mr Rochester, reading my countenance,
saw I had done so. His fury was wrought to the
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highest: he must yield to it for a moment,

whatever followed; he crossed the floor and
seized my arm and grasped my waist. He
25 seemed to devour me with his flaming glance:
physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as
stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a
furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and
with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul,
30 fortunately, has an Interpreter – often an
unconscious, but still truthful interpreter – in the
eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his
fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his grip
was painful, and my overtaxed strength almost
35 exhausted.
‘Never,’ said he, as he ground his teeth, ‘never
was anything at once so frail and so indomitable.
A mere reed she feels in my hand!’ (And he
shook me with the force of his hold.) ‘I could
40 bend her with my finger and thumb: and what
good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed
her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute,
wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with
more than courage – with a stern triumph.
45 Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it – the
savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the
slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive
loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but
the inmate would escape to heaven before I could
50 call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place.
And it is you, spirit – with will and energy, and
virtue and purity – that I want: not alone your

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brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with

soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you
55 would: seized against your will, you will elude the
grasp like an essence – you will vanish ere I
inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!’
As he said this, he released me from his clutch,
and only looked at me. The look was far worse to
60 resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot,
however, would have succumbed now. I had
dared and baffled his fury; I must elude his
sorrow: I retired to the door.

1 0 Starting with this extract, explore how far Brontë

presents Jane as an independent female
character.

Write about:
• how Brontë presents Jane in this extract
• how far Brontë presents Jane as an
independent female character in the novel as a
whole.
[30 marks]
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OR

1 1 Mary Shelley: ‘Frankenstein’

Read the following extract from Chapter 23 of

‘Frankenstein’ and then answer the question that
follows.

In this extract, Frankenstein discovers his wife,

Elizabeth, has been murdered.

I passed an hour in this state of mind, when

suddenly I reflected how fearful the combat which I
momentarily expected would be to my wife, and I
earnestly entreated her to retire, resolving not to
5 join her until I had obtained some knowledge as to
the situation of my enemy.
She left me, and I continued some time walking up
and down the passages of the house, and
inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat
10 to my adversary. But I discovered no trace of him,
and was beginning to conjecture that some
fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the
execution of his menaces, when suddenly I heard a
shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room
15 into which Elizabeth had retired. As I heard it, the
whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped,
the motion of every muscle and fibre was
suspended; I could feel the blood trickling in my
veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs.
20 This state lasted but for an instant; the scream was
repeated, and I rushed into the room.
 39

Great God! why did I not then expire! Why am I

here to relate the destruction of the best hope and
the purest creature of earth? She was there, lifeless
25 and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head
hanging down, and her pale and distorted features
half covered by her hair. Everywhere I turn I see the
same figure – her bloodless arms and relaxed form
flung by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could I
30 behold this and live? Alas! life is obstinate and
clings closest where it is most hated. For a moment
only did I lose recollection; I fell senseless on the
ground.
When I recovered I found myself surrounded by
35 the people of the inn; their countenances expressed
a breathless terror: but the horror of others
appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of the
feelings that oppressed me. I escaped from them to
the room where lay the body of Elizabeth, my love,
40 my wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy. She
had been moved from the posture in which I had
first beheld her; and now, as she lay, her head upon
her arm, and a handkerchief thrown across her face
and neck, I might have supposed her asleep. I
45 rushed towards her, and embraced her with ardour;
but the deadly languor and coldness of the limbs
told me that what I now held in my arms had ceased
to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished.
The murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on
50 her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from
her lips.

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 41

1 1 Starting with this extract, explore how Shelley

presents grief and loss.

Write about:
• how Shelley presents Frankenstein’s grief in this
extract
• how Shelley presents grief and loss in the novel
as a whole.
[30 marks]

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OR

1 2 Jane Austen: ‘Pride and Prejudice’

Read the following extract from Chapter 8 of ‘Pride and

Prejudice’ and then answer the question that follows.

In this extract, Elizabeth has just left the room and

Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst are talking about her.

When dinner was over, she returned directly to

Jane, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon
as she was out of the room. Her manners were
pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of
5 pride and impertinence; she had no conversation,
no style, no taste, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought
the same, and added:
“She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but
being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her
10 appearance this morning. She really looked almost
wild.”
“She did, indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my
countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why
must she be scampering about the country,
15 because her sister had a cold? Her hair, so untidy,
so blowsy!”
“Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her
petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely
certain; and the gown which had been let down to
20 hide it not doing its office.”
“Your picture may be very exact, Louisa,” said
Bingley; “but this was all lost upon me. I thought
 43

Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well when

she came into the room this morning. Her dirty
25 petticoat quite escaped my notice.”
“You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure,” said Miss
Bingley; “and I am inclined to think that you would
not wish to see your sister make such an
exhibition.”
30 “Certainly not.”
“To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles,
or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone,
quite alone! What could she mean by it? It seems
to me to show an abominable sort of conceited
35 independence, a most country-town indifference to
decorum.”
“It shows an affection for her sister that is very
pleasing,” said Bingley.
“I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,” observed Miss Bingley in
40 a half whisper, “that this adventure has rather
affected your admiration of her fine eyes.”
“Not at all,” he replied; “they were brightened by
the exercise.” A short pause followed this speech,
and Mrs. Hurst began again:
45 “I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet, she
is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my
heart she were well settled. But with such a father
and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid
there is no chance of it.”
50 “I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an
attorney in Meryton.”
“Yes; and they have another, who lives
somewhere near Cheapside.”

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 44

“That is capital,” added her sister, and they both

55 laughed heartily.
“If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside,”
cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less
agreeable.”
“But it must very materially lessen their chance of
60 marrying men of any consideration in the world,”
replied Darcy.
To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his
sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged
their mirth for some time at the expense of their
65 dear friend’s vulgar relations.

1 2 Starting with this extract, explore how Austen

presents the ways female characters treat each
other in ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

Write about:
• how Austen presents the ways female
characters treat each other in this extract
• how Austen presents the ways female
characters treat each other in the novel as a
whole.
[30 marks]
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OR
1 3 Arthur Conan Doyle: ‘The Sign of Four’

Read the following extract from Chapter 10 (The End of

the Islander) of ‘The Sign of Four’ and then answer the
question that follows.

In this extract, Holmes and Watson are on the River

Thames in pursuit of Jonathan Small.

‘And there is the Aurora,’ exclaimed Holmes, ‘and

going like the devil! Full speed ahead, engineer.
Make after that launch with the yellow light. By
heaven, I shall never forgive myself if she proves to
5 have the heels of us!’
She had slipped unseen through the yard-
entrance and passed between two or three small
craft, so that she had fairly got her speed up before
we saw her. Now she was flying down the stream,
10 near in to the shore, going at a tremendous rate.
Jones looked gravely at her and shook his head.
‘She is very fast,’ he said. ‘I doubt if we shall
catch her.’
‘We must catch her!’ cried Holmes between his
15 teeth. ‘Heap it on, stokers! Make her do all she can!
If we burn the boat we must have them!’
We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared,
and the powerful engines whizzed and clanked like
a great metallic heart. Her sharp, steep prow cut
20 through the still river-water and sent two rolling
waves to right and to left of us. With every throb of
the engines we sprang and quivered like a living
 47

thing. One great yellow lantern in our bows threw a

long, flickering funnel of light in front of us. Right
25 ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the
Aurora lay, and the swirl of white foam behind her
spoke of the pace at which she was going. We
flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in
and out, behind this one and round the other.
30 Voices hailed us out of the darkness, but still the
Aurora thundered on, and still we followed close
upon her track.
‘Pile it on, men, pile it on!’ cried Holmes, looking
down into the engine-room, while the fierce glow
35 from below beat upon his eager aquiline face. ‘Get
every pound of steam you can.’
‘I think we gain a little,’ said Jones with his eyes
on the Aurora.
‘I am sure of it,’ said I. ‘We shall be up with her in
40 a very few minutes.’

1 3 Starting with this extract, explore how Conan

Doyle creates an atmosphere of tension and
excitement in ‘The Sign of Four’.

Write about:
• how Conan Doyle creates an atmosphere of
tension and excitement in this extract
• how Conan Doyle creates an atmosphere of
tension and excitement in the novel as a whole.
[30 marks]
END OF QUESTIONS
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